A girl’s view of sustainability and social media

More Gallup Results on Green Living in America

Another recent Gallup survey completes and confirms what we already knowfrom the other Gallup survey and other research.

There is a core group of people, about 30% who are deeply committed to making environmental changes. As Kyle emphasized in one of his earlier comments here, these are the people we need to work with. They can be evangelists for sustainable living.

The environment is a significant concern, but one that comes behind more personal and immediate concerns such as the economy, health care, energy, crime, social security, and drug use. One could say that energy concerns are directly related to the environment, and that from a systemic point of view, other issues are connected as well:

Recycling comes out on top, again. Probably the only green habit that is supported with widespread infrastructure and easy, no cost solutions. Let us take note and imagine how the same can be done in the other areas.

Last, this particular survey gets into demographics, and confirms prior research. Women are leading the way of the green revolution, and so are the people with more democrat leanings. Maryand Diane, the women part should please you!

I don’t know about you, but this leaves me with a sense of increased clarity, and hope for what can and needs to be done next.

Re: woman leanings. Thanks for digging up more quotables. It’s nice to have the stats to prove what common sense tells us already, i.e. whatever you touch the most, you tend to care about more. Arguably women touch their kids and gardens and homes more and so whatever is better for their kids, gardens and homes they’ll pay attention to and change.

If there is a subgroup of society that feels strongly about the global warming problem (and there is of course), one of the necessary steps is to energize, catalyze, and facilitate action among those people.

That said, a good deal of such action will have to be more public than it is today.

For example, consider media and on-line activities. Media in the U.S. are very fragmented. Thus, if a person wants to pick media that don’t cover global warming, or that deny it, that person can easily cocoon him/herself into denial and inaction. Similarly, it’s very easy to avoid on-line discussions of global warming and associated action if you want to. Most people who don’t pay attention to global warming simply avoid those on-line articles and blogs, and (possibly) many of the deniers who participate in those blogs are actually committed to their denial.

So, if concerned parties mainly or only activate their feelings on the web or even in the media, those feelings and actions remain invisible to a very large chunk of the population. And, that apparent invisibility can send its own big counter-productive signal. Humans are often visual and intuitive creatures: Many, many people probably think, “if life seems to be going on as normal, and if people aren’t expressing their views visibly and publicly, things must be OK, or it can’t be all that bad.”

So, I think, some (perhaps much) of the action that should be taken on the part of the “30% who care” must be visible action, i.e., talking face-to-face to neighbors, walking on campuses, physically visiting the offices of politicians, attending large events, and so forth. In other words, get out the signs and t-shirts, and perhaps megaphones.

FYI, for those interested in “context” and in where this sort of thinking is coming from: I don’t think I’ve ever carried a “picket sign” before. I don’t think I’ve ever physically paraded through campus, except when I was late to class or in the marching band. I don’t think I’ve ever expressed much frustration or displeasure with a specific company, except in small conversations or (increasingly) on blogs. So, when I start to think about signs and t-shirts and action, it’s not because that’s been my history. Instead, my science background and business background “tell me” that such action will be necessary to help move the mountain and that waiting until next year, or the year after, or the next year, wouldn’t be wise.

That recycling is at the top of the list (39%) of things that people do fits with my notion that we need to change the array of incentives and disincentives that people face when they make decisions. By making recycling easier, or even mandatory in many places, more people are doing it–no surprise. One lesson here is that people DO respond to incentives (and disincentives), as any economics text will tell you.

More mysterious to me is the 17% who say they drive less, carpool more, etc. That is a very high figure, yet gas consumption in the U.S. has remained almost the same or gone up somewhat. Here higher prices (a disincentive) will bring about more change, though only if the high prices begin to look like they will stay around. When W was inaugurated, crude oil was selling for about $27 a barrel; it is up now by about $90. If we could find a way to add one passenger to, say, every other car on the road, then we could make a real dent not just in fuel consumption per capita but also in congestion. For too long in the U.S. we have kept gas prices very low, and consumers have responded rationally by driving far too much. Those days may be gone now, but we are living in a settlement pattern created by an auto culture. It will not be easy to kick this habit, but scarcity and high prices will nudge us along. (Thanks to Marguerite for mentioning Nudge, the book.)

Ten percent said they were trying to use less electricity, but only 2 percent were trying to make their homes more efficient, yet that is where they consume most of their electricity. Positive incentives to encourage people to make their homes more efficient would be great, but you would think that just the appeal of lower electric bills would help.

I agree with Jeff, “If there is a subgroup of society that feels strongly about the global warming problem (and there is of course), one of the necessary steps is to energize, catalyze, and facilitate action among those people. That said, a good deal of such action will have to be more public than it is today.”

As I look at all of the trends in the world that seem to be converging right now, it makes me more than a little nervous. Energy prices are up, and it is likely that we are at or near the world’s peak oil production. Food prices are rising almost everywhere, and in some cases very steeply (e.g. rice). Fresh water is getting scarce in many places, partly in response to shifts in global climatic patterns. CO2 and CH4 concentrations in the atmosphere are steadily increasing, or worse yet, their increase rates are actually accelerating. The human population continues to add another 80 million people to the planet each year.

One of my favorite recent books is The Black Swan by Nassim Taleb, who warns us about the dangers of making predictions, which is why I don’t want to make too much of all of the converging trends, scary as they might appear. As Taleb noted, “[O]ur minds are wonderful explanation machines, capable of making sense out of almost anything, capable of mounting explanations for all manner of phenomena, and generally incapable of accepting the idea of unpredictability.” He also notes that “It takes considerable effort to see facts (and remember them) while withholding judgment and resisting explanations,” and “Prediction, not narration, is the real test of our understanding of the world.”

However, the real warning from Taleb is this, “The problem with experts is that they do not know what they do not know.” It is these unknowns, the black swans of his book title, that are most likely to alter the course of history, for better or worse.

In the meantime more and more writers, even a few of that super-optimistic economist species, are beginning to rethink the idea of limits, an idea that is entirely absent from modern neoclassical economics. As Kelpie Wilson wrote recently, “Globalization has promised to lift every person out of poverty by growing the economy so large that wealth will eventually trickle down to all. But this is a false promise that ignores physical limits to planetary resources.” This seems less a prediction than a simple return to common sense, and I’m all for that.

Regarding Wilson’s point in your last paragraph: It’s very interesting how what’s obvious to small numbers of people (but rejected by most) one decade becomes fashionable wisdom to a broader group three decades (or sometimes three centuries!) later.

Sorry, I can’t resist mentioning the following: In Plato’s “The Republic”, Socrates discusses many of the problems associated with excessive consumption with remarkable insight, as Plato tells it. Socrates and Plato didn’t know about global warming, of course, but they got much of the rest of the problem right. That was a long, long time ago. Apparently, we didn’t listen very well.

I’m not surprised to see recycling at the top of the list since it is hard for people to drive less when where they live or where they work effects them so much. But I am surprised to see so many people still not recycling enough. Since it is such an easy thing, it’s something we should keep focusing on until it is second nature for everyone. And everyone, even companies should get involved. For example, instead of just that one little recycling symbol on their cans, Pepsi is now putting recycling facts to remind customers to recycle that beverage can. It’s a small thing but can hopefully make a difference. Maybe we can put up signs on the highway to say “try carpooling next time”?

Sara, welcome to this blog, and thanks for jumping in. You may be interested in reading earlier post I wrote on second nature . . .🙂

Jeff, I agree with the need to complement virtual communications with physical demonstrations, to make up for the fragmentation of the media. Fortunately we live at a time, when so many tools are at our disposal. Creativity, intelligence and passion are the only limiting factors to what can be done here.

Gary, I am also a big proponent of smart economic incentives. We know from behavioral psychology, how effective sticks and carrots are . . . Regarding your second point about limits, it is obvious that the human species as a whole has been suffering from grandiosity and delusion. This inflated vision of ourselves has crystallized into neoclassical economics, as you so justly describe. It is my hope that we will not let it all up to nature to bring some sense back into us.

Gary,
An approach with incentives is a measure of last resort I think. It assumes people are unwilling to change unless it saves them money. This assumption comes from a very narrow definition of utility that most economist’s use, namely that people don’t get any utility out of doing “the right thing”.

Also, although people in general don’t like to pay higher prices, a higher price doesn’t mean they will consume less. In economics, the change in aggregate change in demand as result of higher prices is named “price elasticity of demand”, and for something as simple as gasoline, this is really, really low. That is, if you leave everything to “dumb” consumers. I put “dumb” between quotes here because as employees they’re probably pretty smart, but in general, consumers fail to make rational economic decisions.

In business, a concept like Total Cost of Ownership is quite common, but many people don’t calculate a TCO for their car based on gas prices, insurance costs and the like. Same is true for their choice of where they live and where they work. Lots of people don’t even inflate their tires properly, which is very easy, and saves serious fuel.

“Proper air pressure results in better gas mileage, which at $3 per gallon could save you as much as $432 per year, according to an informal study conducted by Carnegie Mellon students last spring. ”

This doesn’t mean that I’m against higher prices. In fact, I would love a proper carbon tax. It would relieve me from the need think about the carbon contents of a product or service.
What I do want to stress is that prices only go so far in influencing behavior.

I think by far the most important thing we can do is give concrete alternatives to current behavior. For commuting, that can be promoting teleworking, or facilitating carpooling. Urban sprawl is a fact. It can’t be undone in a few years. We could warn people about buying houses far away from the city, urging them to take fuel costs in account. Same is true for buying poorly insulated homes.

On the supply side, if you consider real estate development, business would respond better to lower demand, but it’s not like they’ll instantaneously switch to different, environmental friendly projects. They might very well not know about different ways of constructing, or if they do, don’t have the training to do this. Incentives don’t work if people don’t know how to change their behavior.

So I think a big part of the problem is education.

I think there’s a leading demographic who is willing to change their behavior, and would do this if they would get proper guidance. People are busy. They have a job, and kids. They’re eating out because they don’t have time to cook. How much time do they have left to evaluate their daily habits?

If you only consider how many regular light-bulbs are still out there, while it’s known they have a higher TCO than energy-saving ones… People are not rational in the narrow sense. They might be interested in saving money, but that doesn’t mean they’ll figure out how to do this by themselves.

Personally, I think this leaves room for a huge army of energy-saving consultants who would give personalized advice for families. But then, if they would see a positive ROI for insulating a home, which can be found in lots of places, home insulators would soon be making overtime. Those (and others) are the “green-collar jobs” which Van Jones is talking about.

Thanks Meryn. Regarding your last point, one huge hurdle to change is costs. I just talked to an energy audit company here in the Bay Area, that specializes in retrofitting of homes. This is an area of great interest to me. One of their main challenge is to convince people to pay for their services. Unless some financing is offered, very few people are willing to fork up the extra money to retrofit their homes. Same with buying organic versus regular products, or installing solar.

Regarding Marguerite’s point #10, some organization should be willing to pay the upfront investment cost for some of these improvements in exchange for a cut of the savings. In other words, some of these things could effectively be funded with secure loans with very little risk. Put another way, given that there are positive returns to many of these investments (especially when energy costs are high), and given that individual families and individuals are often very poor at understanding and taking advantage of those returns, businesses should be able to fill the financing gap. In fact, a great “green energy” company, associated with making homes more efficient, should not only be able to pitch and install the necessary equipment, but should also be able to finance the whole thing, i.e., provide the equipment and installation for free in exchange for a portion of the savings stream. And, if the government is smart, some of that type of thing should receive tax or other incentives. Any good forward-thinking utility (once it is measured and rewarded appropriately) should get into this as well and help motivate the process and make it VERY easy for consumers.

marguerite: They’re even not willing to pay with a positive ROI?
If that’s so, it only proves the irrationality. If it doesn’t have a positive ROI… well then those houses will have to wait a little longer, until energy is even more expensive, or until there’s a carbon tax instilled.

I do think that the huge consumer debt is a huge obstacle for energy-saving investments. If you look at this problem closely, you’ll see a parallel between quite regular American people and the poor in Africa: they can’t get out of their mold because of a lack of credit. The sad part is that while the Africans never had it (or maybe they do, see microfinance initatives), Americans have spend it all themselves. Their credit is probably all blown on a SUV…

Maybe we should start with a “get out of debt” campaign. It sure would help in lowering consumption.

With analysis like this, you see that everything is connected. It’s one big mess.

You said much that I can’t really agree with, but let’s just take one example. You said, “but in general, consumers fail to make rational economic decisions.”

I don’t think that is true at all, though they may not make the decisions that you think they should make, based on what you might perceive as rational. As best they can, most people do seem to weigh costs and benefits, both economic and noneconomic, before making decisions.

And people do respond to incentives, whatever you might think of it. If we wait for people to just act out of the goodness of their hearts, especially with respect to such long-term problems as global warming, you can forget it. In fact, for most people it probably doesn’t make any sense at all to change their behavior because the IPCC predicts that Earth’s temperature will be a bit warmer 100 years from now than it is now. Barring some colossal breakthrough in longevity, most adults today will not be alive to see 2100 roll around, let alone 2200, etc.

As for your comment on gas and the elasticity of demand, what you said is true only in the short run. This is obvious if you look at the cars on the road in most of Europe, where gas is already 50% or more higher than it is here, compared to here. Whereas our roads remain clogged with SUVs, Smarts are all over Europe. That is why I noted that IF gas prices stay high here, THEN people will begin to change their behavior. I would be amazed to find out otherwise!

Keep in mind also that Americans are looking not just at costs and benefits (including noneconomic ones) but also at their budgets. They also think about future consequences of what they do, to the extent that they can. Americans are, as a group, pretty well off, so they can make adjustments in their lives, at least for a while, that less well off people can’t make. That, I think, is one of the tragedies of using corn to make ethanol–we’re diverting food to fuel SUVs, even if it means starvation for people at the other end of the scale.

Finally, I’d like to go back to your first comment, “An approach with incentives is a measure of last resort I think. It assumes people are unwilling to change unless it saves them money.”

Atmospheric CO2 has gone from about 280 to 390 ppm since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, and it now appears to be going up at an accelerating rate, around 2 ppm per annum. Some scientists have pointed out that what we face may well qualify as a “last resort.”

Though I do think some people are willing to change without it saving them money, I also think, as noted above, that most people are motivated more by economic than by noneconomic factors, whether you and I like that or not.

As I said before, I see nothing to suggest that global warming will be even dented by depending on the voluntary actions of those who feel that something needs to be done. For at least two decades now scientists have been clear about what they think is happening, and during that 20 years the CO2 content of the atmosphere has clicked up every single year, as regular as a clock, and CH4 is rising as well, though not as steadily.

Thirty years or so ago Jimmy Carter sat in front of a fireplace with a warm cardigan sweater on and told Americans that we needed to voluntarily make some sacrifices. Most Americans laughed then, and they are still laughing. Since then, we’ve added about 90 million more people to this country, and nearly three billion more to the world’s population.

Frankly, I think that IF we want to do something about global warming (and that is a big if in the U.S. and elsewhere), THEN we will have to do more than the equivalent of asking people to put on those cardigan sweaters. Personally, perhaps like you, I wish it were otherwise.

“As best they can, most people do seem to weigh costs and benefits, both economic and noneconomic, before making decisions.”
Can you back this up? To my best knowledge, economists support this with a construct called “revealed preference”, e.g. “if they chose it, it must have been in their best interest”. But this can’t be falsified. Meanwhile, there are countless of examples where people are clearly not behaving rational.
Of course, at times, people go comparison shopping. But do they ever consider all alternatives? No, because that’s simply not possible. Ever heard of bounded rationality? You have said yourself that a big problem is that people don’t know what they don’t know. Could it be that many consumers are not seeing options that they would eagerly choose if laid out in front of them?

“If we wait for people to just act out of the goodness of their hearts, especially with respect to such long-term problems as global warming, you can forget it.”
Well I think that if we can’t count on the goodness of ALL people, we at least have to count on the goodness of at least a majority of the people, because otherwise, there would be no majority support for more strict regulations, cap-and-trade systems or a carbon tax. If we can do 50%, I’ll bet we can do even better.

Regarding price elasticty of demand: Of course, in the long run, people will figure out by themselves how to save costs. Maybe in 10 years, they have figured out that they could better drive a smaller car, live closer to home, or don’t drive at all and work from home. The question is how we can speed up this adjustment process. My bet is informing people how to adjust.

“most people are motivated more by economic than by noneconomic factors, whether you and I like that or not.”
That’s not something I contend, although I do think this might change over time, because this way of thinking does not lead to happiness, e.g. it goes against findings of positive psychology. It’s also not compatible with the teachings of Jesus Christ, which can’t be considered a small factor in the USA.

“Thirty years or so ago Jimmy Carter sat in front of a fireplace with a warm cardigan sweater on and told Americans that we needed to voluntarily make some sacrifices.”
Jimmy Carter framed it wrong. Consuming less is not a sacrifice, it’s a blessing. People have to learn that. The whole notion that material possessions would have something to do with happiness is absurd. It hasn’t got a factual basis. It’s nothing but a psychological construct in many peoples mind. It’s a story people tell themselves, and each other. That story is wrong. Talking about the need to make sacrifices reinforces the old story, and thus is the wrong way to go.

“I think that IF we want to do something about global warming (and that is a big if in the U.S. and elsewhere), THEN we will have to do more than the equivalent of asking people to put on those cardigan sweaters.”
I totally agree with you. I think we need even more than regulation and taxes, I think we need to instill a whole different mindset, if only because the would-be regulation and taxes won’t be supported if at least a majority of voters would either be willing to “sacrifice” or would understand that lower consumption of fossil fuels doesn’t have to be a sacrifice. It might even be enjoyable.

“As best they can, most people do seem to weigh costs and benefits, both economic and noneconomic, before making decisions.”
I haven’t been fair here. You already qualified your statement with “as best as they can”. And that’s precisely what’s important. We need to improve “the best they can do”.

I haven’t followed all the most recent posts today. (Chores!) I’ve just glanced at them. But, I’ll just add my two cents worth:

People aren’t particularly precise. We are only VERY ROUGHLY “optimized”, with lots of loose parts and rough edges. Dare I say this, that we aren’t completely rational! We often need help (from our environments, available options, policies, and, yes, some constraints) in order to be reasonably responsible sometimes. We sometimes need “help” in order to act in our own genuine best interests.

The issue with people spending or not on (say) insulation, is an old one: it’s a definite expense today for an uncertain benefit in future. It’s the old short-term vs long-term.

We see this all the time in business, everywhere, like the classic thing of an executive of a publicly-listed company coming in and sacking a third of the workforce, the share value goes up for a bit, a year later the exec is gone to a new company and the current company is in the toilet, since it lost a good deal of expertise and demoralised the rest. That’s benefit today for uncertain expense tomorrow.

This contrasts with the insulation, expense today for uncertain benefit tomorrow.

Now, you can show people a piece of paper with expected benefits in the future, but people just don’t believe a piece of paper. I’m remembering again a project in South Australia where a local council realised that the sewerage they were having to clean to pump out into the ocean a hundred miles away, they had to clean it to higher standards than were required for recycled water for agriculture. And the area had a drought, and the farmers were in trouble.

Hmmm, Problem: Expense of pumping water into the ocean. Problem: local drought, farms in trouble. Could two problems be combined to make a solution? Yes!

The farmers said, “but it’s recycled water, we pooed and pissed in that.”
“Yes but it’s clean enough for agriculture, see this piece of paper saying so.”
“Hmmm. I’m not sure I trust that. But even if I trust it, maybe my customers buying my products won’t trust it? Will they buy food grown with recycled water?”

But then a couple of farmers said, “Well, we’re almost broke anyway, let’s give it a go.” And then a good number said, “my neighbour’s doing it, so I’ll try.” And others waited a year or two to see the results, and then when they saw it worked, they tried it, too.

And so we see that when there’s reluctance to try something new, a piece of paper convinces almost nobody, what your neighbour’s doing convinces lots, and proven results convince the last holdouts.

The other issue is security. People in the US and Australia don’t feel economically secure. Everything could turn to shit tomorrow, if it hasn’t already. In finance news they report this as “consumer confidence”. When consumer confidence is low, people drop spending. That includes spending on insulation, solar panels and the like. I’m not going to spend twenty grand on solar panels if I’m scared I won’t have my job tomorrow, or if I think transport costs might double by November.

So I think we’ll have better success in promoting measures that cost no money, or which will save money today. Like conservation, reducing meat-eating, that sort of thing.

Wow! Great exchange of ideas here . . . I would like to suggest that we do not endorse either or approaches. Hence, I believe you each hold some elements of answer. I really think we need all the help we can to solve the problem. Financial incentives, absolutely. Education, yes. Regulations and taxes. Yes. Greener, cheaper alternatives, yes. Smart standards, yes. Leaders and influencers in microcommunities, yes. etc, etc . . . Also let us not forget as Gary has reminded us before, that global warming is only part of the problem.

“And so we see that when there’s reluctance to try something new, a piece of paper convinces almost nobody, what your neighbour’s doing convinces lots, and proven results convince the last holdouts.”

Yes, I totally agree. That’s also the idea of “case studies” for software implementations or customer testimonials for regular products. People trust their friends better than strangers of course, which means that for some part, such new things will spread through the social network.

I think the internet can help to get champions of some idea in many different places, so we don’t have to wait for change to come from one direction. For example, it’s good that both No Impact Man (NYC) and Marguerite (SFO) are experimenting with their lifestyle.

This issue of incentivizing environmentally-friendly behavior is one I’ve been thinking about a lot. It certainly doesn’t only pertain to energy, though there is great opportunity there. As I travel around the country speaking to hundreds of people, I constantly hear the “I can’t afford it refrain.” One of the beauties of recycling is that it’s free; when it’s convenient (as with curbside pick-up programs), its appeal increases even more. I’d love to see federal policy that subsidizes transitions to more eco actions – it’s something all the current presidential candidates should be talking about, but aren’t. Instead, of course, what’s happening? The energy polluters get huge subsidies, and alternative energy suppliers are still “entrepreneurs.” (BTW, this is also true in agriculture: agribusiness receives astounding federal handouts to continue to apply polluting chemicals, while farmers can’t get a penny to transition to organic growing).